Indian Defence Review

The Mutilated Reality of J&K

As an annual ritual just like in the past, this year too, during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meet, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Mr Nawaz Sharif raised the Kashmir issue. Be it any forum they never miss out an opportunity to highlight their one point ‘K’ agenda. The reference to human rights violations in Kashmir comes out in the same breath. India has been for long ignoring Pakistan but this time around it was decided to show this neighbour a mirror.

The Indian Foreign Minister exercised the right to reply and indicated India’s shift of gears. To quote the Indian Express report; India responded to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s “four-point peace initiative” with a proposal of its own: “give up terrorism”. “We do not need a four-point proposal. We need just one: “give up terrorism and let us sit down and talk. This will resolve all the problems”, Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj told the UNGA.

In response to Pakistan submitting a dossier alleging evidence of India’s hand in terrorism to UN, Swaraj underlined Pakistan’s failure to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice. She further said India remained open to dialogue but this could not go hand in hand with terrorism.

Kashmir seems to be an important antidote to the poison of sectarianism and secessionism spread in every nook and corner of this country. The forces of Islamo-fascism are at large having full governmental sanction and backing as a state policy. The sectarian divisions runs deep in the Pakistani society.

Conflicts between the Islamic Republic’s Sunni Deobandi and Shiite Muslim groups have increased in brutality, frequency and mortality over the past several years. According to a Middle East Institute (MEI) report, approximately 2,300 people have died in the country’s four main provinces and some 1,500 people have lost their lives in the tribal area of the Kurram Agency since 2007. Prominent members of both the Sunni and Shiite groups have fallen victim to the violence in nearly every main city in Pakistan.

Baluchistan, the largest Pakistani province been demanding independence. The insurgency there has engaged a large strength of Pak army tied up. They are engaged into what can be termed as the world’s one of the most brutal state suppressions.

The Baluch live in a vast territory the size of France boasting enormous reserves of gas, gold and copper, as well as untapped sources of oil and uranium sharing borders with Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

Islamabad has continuously exploited the natural resources in this land of Baluchs. Combined with repressive state-run policies they have witnessed five armed uprisings in the region since the territory was annexed by Pakistan in 1948.

“Parliamentary politics is not an option for us so we’re forced to make politics with weapons,” Khair Bux Marri, the tribal leader widely perceived as the godfather of the Baluch insurgency, said an interview conducted back in 2009. Hence the Kashmir issue is so important [diversion] for the Pak establishment to be kept alive.

Quoting Naseer Memon from Pakistan Tribune, 03 May 2013; the recent spate of violence in Sindh attained yet another traumatic dimension when the brutalised bodies of two young students were found in Dadu district. In a typical Baluchistan-styled episode, both activists of a nationalist party, Amir Khahawar and Sajjad Markhand, were picked up in Larkano a few days ago and their tortured bodies were later found on the roadside.

The recent incidents triggered a wave of violence, protests and a paralysing strike in large parts of the province. Kidnapping and dumping lacerated and mutilated bodies of political activists turned Baluchistan into a vortex of violence and now, the same mistake is being repeated in a relatively sedate province. Similar incidents snowballed a political conflict into a secessionist movement in Baluchistan.

Ever since the descent voices are getting stronger in Sindh province. The Mohajirs [refugees from Indian states of UP and Bihar] are another lot that is worst affected. They were instrumental in creation of Pakistan as a separate homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims. Mohajirs as they are still called have been literally remained unwelcomed in the dream land they created.

Recently when Mr Nawaz Sharif was chanting the ‘K’ rant at UN, a protest demonstration was held in front of White House by the MQM America against what it called the state-sponsored security operation against ‘Mohajirs’ in Karachi.

A country dominated by the Punjabis who sit over all aspects of daily lives of the Pakistanis has left various ethnic and regional groups stifled. Kashmir issue resuscitates the collapsing social fibre to large extent I guess hence important.

Recently some videos surfaced showing huge protests being held in Pak Occupied Kashmir (POK). Sloganeering echoed wide spread sentiment seeking independence. It highlighted the plight of those who suffer at the hands of Pak Military and face human rights violations on daily basis. Hence Kashmir issue and human rights violations in Indian Kashmir assumes importance. Even the LoC firing helps divert attentions form their internal contradictions. Emma Nicholson’s report on the wide spread human right violations in the so called Azad Kashmir is yet another testimony to Pakistani incongruities.

It is a country where Pakistan army has employed all its war fighting resources to include tanks, artillery and the fighter jets against its own civilians. Operation Zarb-E-Azb is a live example to the unprecedented human rights violation in the modern history. Thousands of civilians have been forced out of their homes in to refugee like camps to facilitate these military operations.

Such massive scale of violence has been perpetuated by the state upon its own civilians in past decades as well. Pakistanis have been witness to such military operations earlier in Sindh [1970s] and later in Baluchistan [1980].

In Baluchistan abductions and killings by the Pak military are well known. The Pak Army is known to throw many Baluchi freedom fighters alive from helicopters. All this is done to create terror in the hearts and minds of the Baluch insurgent and civilians seeking independence. Such stories do get supressed by the ‘K’ rhetoric to a large extent.

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Human Rights Watch has extensively documented enforced disappearances, and related allegations of torture, extrajudicial killings, and other abuses by Pakistan’s security forces in Baluchistan, including several cases in which those “disappeared” have turned up dead.  The Baluchistan Home and Tribal Affairs Department reported in July 2014 that authorities had recovered the bodies of 800 people killed in Baluchistan over the past three-and-a-half years, the majority ethnic Baluch “political workers.”

A country owned by the military has only one point agenda and that is to fight the Indian state on all the fronts. All the roads thus converge at Kashmir. Starting from alliances with the west by Ayub in the 1950s to Zia’s support to American proxy war with the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1980s to the present ongoing sham GWOT pledged to the west by Musharraf post twin tower attack.

The whole strategy revolves around being a frontline state. This in return gets arms and funds to support their cause in Kashmir. They appear to have mastered the art of playing a victim. Gen Raheel Sharif’s address recently in Germany this year September is a point in context. He, while addressing CENTCOM Asia Security Conference in Munich, Germany, the Pak COAS said perpetual instability in Afghanistan had telling effects on the region.

He also played to the fears of the west by announcing [Frankenstein Monster] the arrival of ISIS in his country. He smartly highlighted the challenges Pakistan faces in keeping the Islamic terrorism contained. The west has always feared a scenario wherein the Pakistani Nuclear arsenals fall into the hands of terrorists. Thus this was an effort to be a frontline state yet again.

Kashmir issue therefore is an extremely important agenda for the Generals there. It is not for any real interest or genuine concerns for the Kashmiri people. It is a fundamental national obligation that they never miss a chance to raise a bogie at any forum available. After all it serves their interest well. Thus it is an issue linked by them to the creation of Pakistan on religious lines. Kashmir being a Muslim majority state is claimed as a remnant of unfinished partition of this subcontinent by the British in 1947.

It invokes emotions of the masses which are heavily drugged on strong doses of Islam. The rhetoric of Hindu suppression of Kashmiri Muslims augurs well with the theme. This way they have been able to shift domestic focus from their internal turmoil quiet well thus far.

On the foreign policy front they had garnered a lot of support in the international arena. Pakistan is able to obtain huge sums in donations. And major portion of its resources go into creating a network and infrastructure that churns out terrorists [good] to fight the Indians. It keeps their country united and the dollar taps open.

All this now appears to be changing. The government of India at different forums has started highlighting Pakistan as a hub of Islamic terrorism. The Indians are now talking of the territory of Jammu and Kashmir illegally under Pakistani occupation.

Use of soft power to further the Indian interest is equally essential in the long run which needs to be encouraged. The analyst and opinion makers have started airing their concerns of human rights violation in Baluchistan and the POK on the electronic and print media quiet regularly and openly. Even recently a Bollywood movie named Phantom was made; themed at elimination of terrorists living in safe havens in Pakistan who were responsible for the Mumbai attack.